
Jeffery Renard Allen
Writing
2025
Read MoreDavid Thomas was born in Belfast N. Ireland, and lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. His paintings, installations and photopaintings explore how new iterations of the monochrome and the composite manifest time, complexity, impermanence, memory and feeling.
David Thomas’ work is held in prominent international collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Australian National Gallery, Heide Museum of Modern Art, RMIT University, and the Ballarat Art Gallery in Australia. Other notable collections include the Justin Art House Museum, the Auckland Art Gallery (NZ), the Chartwell Collection (NZ), the Lim Lip Museum (South Korea), the Kunstmuseum Ahlen, the Kunstmuseum Bonn, and The Frederick Collection (Germany).
In recent years, David Thomas has showcased his work in a range of notable exhibitions across Australia and internationally. In 2024, he presented The Passing of Days and Nights at Block Projects in Naarm/Melbourne, alongside Paintings Time and Change, a collaborative exhibition with Simon Morris at Two Rooms in Auckland, Aotearoa. His participation in Photography: Real and Imagined at the National Gallery of Victoria (2023-24), curated by Susan van Wyk and Maggie Finch, further highlighted his exploration of visual perception. In 2022, Thomas contributed to Love Poem to Life: The Heide Modern Project at Heide Museum of Modern Art and joined Julian Goddard and Sarah Robson for Abstract Realities at Manly Art Gallery and Museum in Sydney.
A New Site-Sensitive Work
David Thomas will create a site-sensitive work at Bundanon, exploring the dynamic relationships between inside and outside, internal and external, and micro and macro scales. This project will expand on the tradition of the “borrowed landscape,” which he previously explored in his works shown at Heide MoMA (2016/2022). Notable examples include “Green (Beyond the Picture Plane—The Garden)” and the outdoor installation “Long Unfinished Timeline / Yellow.” At Bundanon, Thomas will continue to investigate these thresholds, integrating elements of the surrounding landscape with interior spaces, building upon the dialogue between the two.
The Book of Titles
This ongoing project began during Thomas’ long-term residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (1991–1992). During his time at Bundanon, he will further develop The Book of Titles, selecting and refining titles that will accompany new “Photographs with Text” works and colour paintings. His goal is to compile these pieces into a new publication, weaving together visual and textual elements in a way that deepens their meaning and interplay.